Summary: When Isabelle gets caught making herself throw up, she gets sent to a therapy group for people with eating disorders – and to her overwhelming surprise she finds Ashley, the most beautiful and popular girl at her school, also in attendance. The two become friends, bonding over binges and purges and the relief of finding somebody else who understands what they’re going through. But Ashley can’t help Isabelle deal with what’s really wrong: the unhealed grief she still carries from the death of her father nearly two years ago. How can Isabelle heal if she and her sister have been taught to pretend it isn’t there?

Who’ll Love It: Often fun and light-hearted in tone for such heavy subject matter, this quick read will appeal to anybody interested in the emotional lives of teenagers. The rags-to-riches fantasy element of an unpopular girl invited to the “popular table” in the lunchroom is a fun exercise in fantasy, but the story really drives home the point that popularity, prettiness, and seeming perfection doesn’t guarantee happiness, and can conceal some pretty painful demons. It’s a very readable study on the difference between appearance and reality.

The Real Story: Isabelle may be a fictional character, but bulimia is more common than many of us might imagine, with between one and six of every hundred people affected, depending where you are and which study you take seriously. You can get a good general overview of the sickness here. Lots of people believe that bulimia happens primarily to young girls who think they’re too fat, but anybody can be bulimic, and the link between eating disorders and stress or emotional trauma (as with Isabelle’s grief or Ashley’s family issues) is very real in situations where people don’t feel they can deal with their problems directly.

Summary: Arnold Spirit – known on his Spokane reservation home as ‘Junior’ – is a smart guy. He knows he’s not quite strong enough to fit in with the other kids on the reservation, and he knows he’s never going to survive, much less succeed, unless he gets away. So he takes the first step: he asks to transfer to the nearby “rich white kid” school, Rearden High. He does a lot better there, making friends and even finding a girlfriend, and he’s a lot more likely to get a worthwhile education that might one day mean he can live his dreams of being a cartoonist. But the more he fits in at Rearden, the more unpopular he is back home, with people who think he’s sold out big-time. Is Junior strong enough to survive the judgment and rejection of his own people – and even if he does, will it give him a shot at rising above the crushing tragedy of Native American life?

Who’ll Love It: If you’re fed up with syrupy inspirational stories about ordinary people battling great odds, you may find this book refreshingly realistic. While most such stories focus entirely on whoever’s beating the odds, they tend to ignore the systemic problems that made the odds so darn bad in the first place, and they barely even glance at everybody else left below. But this is as much a story about other people’s failures as it is about Junior’s struggle to succeed, and it doesn’t shy away from depicting the hard knocks of reservation life: violence, poverty, alcoholism, and child abuse are just a few of the problems Alexie takes on through Junior’s eyes. I particularly loved the spin he puts on the familar “sports grudge match” sequence we know from the movies: does it really count as winning when you come from the team who has every advantage and your opponents probably couldn’t afford to eat breakfast?

The Real Story: The heartbreaking poverty in this story is a real and persistent problem for actual families and individuals living on reservations in North America. Spotlight on Poverty offers up an article on the topic, and the Property and Environment Research Center looks at some government-related problems that keep the problem alive. If you’re American, you can find the reservation nearest where you live on this interactive map. (Nothing nearly that nifty for Canadians, but at least we’ve got a list of bands available.) It’s strange to think that this level of poverty, comparable to what you find in Third-World nations, exists within a couple hours’ drive of where you’re sitting in front of your computer screen.

Plot Summary: Hannah has spent her whole life moving from town to town, and she’d love the chance to fit in somewhere – but for the new girl, that’s almost always impossible. In her new town, though, she might have a chance; the popular cheerleaders are taking an interest in her. Unfortunately, her uncool friend Lukas wants her to believe that the cheerleaders and football players – even some ordinary townsfolk! – are actual zombies, the kind he reads about in his horror comics. Hannah figures that’s crazy . . . although it’s true that the identical cheerleaders will ask her to alter her appearance, devote herself to the squad, and even change her name. But is that really too great a sacrifice when Hannah will finally get a chance to fit in?

Who’ll Love It: Anyone who remembers what it’s like to yearn for popularity and acceptance. It’s easy to see that Hannah is walking into trouble, but Brian James does a great job portraying the way Hannah’s desire to be popular overrides her critical thinking, so she finds herself making excuses and rationalizing whatever sets off warning flags in her head.

When I picked up this book I wondered whether Brian James, being male, could pull off writing about the world of high-school girl-fighting. After all, female social arrangements don’t really work the same as male ones. But either he has an inside source or he’s extraordinarily observant: I thought he nailed all the hidden cattiness and manipulation that comes with girl-bullying.

Fun Trivia: If you Google “Zombie Blondes”, theresult that comes up under ‘image search’ is pretty unusual – it features the same title-page image over and over again. It’s positively creepy . . . but I think it goes with the subject matter of the book perfectly. Try it and see what you think.